That sounds pretty good to say I will believe it because Jesus taught it. But does it really work with reality. You have Luke 16 Abraham's bosom, the rich man and Lazerus. Is that a true teaching that reflects reality because Jesus taught it?

What about when Jesus taught that a seed dies in the ground only to come to life. Well seeds that die don't grow anything do they?

Is the mustard seed the smallest of seeds? No not at all do you believe that it is because Jesus taught that it was the smallest? 

Jesus taught people who were scientifically not knowledgeable. So He spoke to them at their level. He would not talk about the worldest smallest seed because they would have no idea what that plant really was, He would not talk about the respiration of seeds because they had no knowledge of how seeds really work. He would use stories that they were familar with, whether Adam and Eve or Jonah, just as we might use culturally relevant information even if it was not true such as George Washington, I cannot tell a lie, or when we refer to something that is "mickey mouse". That does not mean that we believe in a literal living creature known as mickey mouse, but that we are relating something to something in our culture that people are familar with. 

In the Old testament God related to the people at the stage they were at, that is also what He does in the New Testament. To go back to either one of those times and assume that is the truth that God always has for us does not make a lot of sense with a God who reaches out to us where we are. We don't usually do that with the Old Testament and we should not be doing it with the New Testament. Unfortunately some people do get stuck in that Old Testament rut and they seem to cause a lot of problems in the world.

Ella M

I think this is a beautiful sermon built on faith that is experienced in the life.  We have our personal evidences of God's presence in numerous "coincidences" and God-moments every day, and no one's theory can take this away from us. We have the record of Jesus Himself who believed the old stories and saw His own destiny in them.

But was Jesus any more of a scientist than we?--not if He were a human.  But He had the experience of communicating with His Father and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  He used stories like the richman and Lazarus because the principle He was making was true even if the story was based on local myth. (Which says something about the legitmacy of truth told in "fiction.")

So this leaves us with "knowing in part."  And what does it matter--what we don't know?  It is mainly because of curiosity that I study these things and find books on astrophysics so fascinating.  We want to know; but there are things we cannot know here.  Our time frame is different from the divine--just what is "deep time"?  Our knowledge of space is so inadequate.  What we know of the cosmos is only 5% of what is there--we don't even see in part.  Perhaps what we know of time is also only 5% as well. It's a puzzle of cosmic proportions.

I find it fun to speculate but always remembering the Truth as it is in Jesus and having it part of my contemplations of the past and future. To pray and think about these marvelous things can be a beautiful and sacred meditative experience. 

Pickle,

Are you kidding me? The geologic column suggests that creatures existed long before humans and modern day animals. So you think "creation" is based on "testable, non disputed presuppositions"?

The geologic column does not answer all questions but neither does the invention of a "creation story." Light gets created at least twice in that myth  and plants are created before there is a sun. It seems God was a bit confused as to what comes first. The story makes no sense if one takes it literally. Taken as a story, it makes more sense.

Pickle,

So you are offended when I call the genesis story a "myth." That is how it appears to me. My position is not unreasoned when I read about other creation myths that predate the genesis story. The 6 day story was written about 500 BCE during the Babylonian exile. Where did the writers get this story when 400 yrs before all they had was the Adam and Eve story? Light does get created twice, on the first day, but we do not know the light source and then again later when the sun, a source of light is created. 

The paleontological record not being a record suggesting that creatures predate other creatures. Give me a break. Yes it does. Stick with Ocams razor.

With your comment "unless you have preconceived opinions..... than what God has said." Correction, "God" did not say it. This is a story written and re-written by humans. It says something about humans and their perceptions but does not tell me about the chronology of life. What is not clear to you? I do not, do not regard the bible as "the word of God himself." To me it is a book more about peoples perceptions of God and how God worked within their time frame.

Differing radio-decay rates? Why? When? How? How many radio tracer studies have you done? I have done hundreds. These are universal constants and that is why I can do radio tracer studies accurately. Furthermore,  if I am working with short half life isotopes I can readily  calculate if I have enough P32 to do a study if my radio label gets lost for a few days in the mail or I misplace it in the lab. This is a problem I assign to my students every year.

I finally have a working password and can respond to your comments.  (And Camp Meeting responsibilities are over, too!)

Your comments about the age-appropriateness of both OT and NT revelations, including those of Jesus, certainly reflect a widespread conviction about the Biblical canon.  I don't think I will walk that road with you, however.  

The desire for a new, updated, corrected, more age-appropriate revelation by a God who meets us where we are  seems too close to the mindset that allowed for the Book of Mormon to supersede the "corrupted" Bible of the early 1800s.

If the Jesus of the NT was only "speaking their language" then we are left with the job of reinventing who Jesus was - and I'm convinced we would make him into our own image instead of vice versa.

There is no doubt that scientists of the last 200 years have observed things undreamed of by those who finalized the OT and NT canons, much less wrote them.  But I am unwilling to make these scientist-observors my new prophets, my new messiahs.

I fully acknowledge it is a leap of faith to believe there is a God who could accurately speak to people of both the first and twenty-first centuries in the language and understanding of the 1st cent.  But that's my conviction.  That's my gamble.  The tension that creates is what I'm willing to live with until the Lord comes.

Ole Olesen

In one respect I am with you in desiring a different explanation for the radioisotope variance in the geologic column. 

However, when you claim that it is an "untestable presuposiiton" I am remembering  that evolutionary geologists hypothesized the ages of the geologic layers years before the science of radioactive decay was developed.  Only afterwards did they have a science to test their presuppositions - and these measurements seem to confirm their views.

I've always admired Geoscience Research Institute for openly identifying the radiometric data from the geologic column as a unexplained challenge to traditional Creationism.  That kind of honest tension I can live with.

Sadly, I imagine that the hypothesis of variable rates of radioactive decay may turn out to be the "untestable presuppostion".  But that's a scientific layman speaking.  I would be thrilled if someone could get their PhD proving that hypothesis to be viable.

Ole Olesen

Ole wrote:

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If the Jesus of the NT was only "speaking their language" then we are left with the job of reinventing who Jesus was - and I'm convinced we would make him into our own image instead of vice versa.

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Indeed we constantly have to reinvent Jesus, because we have so much tradition from so long that we constantly corrupt Jesus. It is not hard to understand that Jesus used metaphors and talked to people at the level of understanding they were at. Just as we need to do that to the other writers of the Bible. The literalist tradition has to be reinvented because it is based upon a poorly reasoned idea. The fact is we have made God after our own image, we have made Him irrational, warlike and vindictive. Well it is about time that we contemporary Adventists got mad at the traditions men have placed on God. It is about time we reinvent our previous invention of understanding God.

So just be clear you are not against reinvention you are against the reinvention of the traditionalist invention. No one would be an SDA if they were against reinvention, that is what the SDA church was founded on.